Past Issues
|
Click on the book's title or author's name to purchase book. |
by Anthony Slide
While in England recently, I had the pleasure of reading Vanessa Redgrave’s autobiography. She writes compellingly of her political beliefs, and I found much to admire in her stance, but I was disappointed in that she chose not to discuss personal aspects of the lives of her father and her husband, director Tony Richardson. In his biography, "Michael Redgrave: My Father" (Richard Cohen Books/Trafalger Square, $29.95) Vanessa Redgrave’s brother, Corin, takes a very different approach. He writes of the "certain things in his nature" (as Michael Redgrave explained his bisexuality to his wife, Rachel Kempson) in detail, strongly defending his father and discussing the entire issue of homosexuality in Britain during Redgrave’s lifetime. One of the most moving passages in a deeply enthralling volume deals with the night when Michael Redgrave broke down and told his son he was "to say the least of it, bisexual."
However, this is no maudlin or tearful text. It is often amusing or simply outrageous. The opening chapter deals with the problem of Michael Redgrave’s ashes. Sister Lynn is angry that brother Corin left them sitting at a crematorium for eight years and now wants to have them buried next to those of Karl Marx in Highgate Cemetery. Corin picks them up and keeps them in his car, enjoying talking to them. Lynn threatens to come over from the U.S. and take care of the disposal of the ashes, while Corin considers substituting ashes from his fireplace in order to keep his father with him in the car. It is this unabashedly frank approach to life - the life of a great British actor - that makes this book so appealing.
As a leading light in the Workers Revolutionary Party, Corin Redgrave devotes considerable space to his father’s politics, to his blacklisting by the BBC during the Second World War and his concern - justified as it transpired - that Vanessa’s politics might similarly hurt her career. If I had any qualms at all about this biography, it is that too little space is devoted to Redgrave’s actress-wife and to her feelings with regard to his extra-marital activities.
"Michael Redgrave: My Father" concludes with a chronology and a complete listing of Redgrave’s work on stage and in films. It is well illustrated. Recommended.
It is perhaps a logical progression from Michael Redgrave’s bisexuality to gay women as depicted in "Immortal Invisible: Lesbians the Moving Image," edited by Tamsin Wilton (Routledge, $17.95). The essays gathered together here are written by minor academics but many with major chips on their shoulders and are devoted primarily to recent films and one television production, the BBC’s Portrait of a Marriage . Sadly, to the lesbians putting together this book, film history is represented mostly by Marlene Dietrich in Morocco. . There is little understanding and even lesser text on the portrayal of lesbians in early cinema. The book does contain an entertaining piece on "camp" (usually associated with gays rather than lesbians), and also an interview with lesbian filmmakers Andrea Weiss and Greta Schiller. Most of the essays are difficult to read, and the best that can be said about the selection is that it does manage nimbly to cross the boundaries between mainstream features and independent lesbian filmmaking. Incidentally, the editor does not appear to be aware that her title is taken from the words of a good, old hymn, which concludes, "Immortal, Invisible, God Only Wise."
Timothy B. Doe writes resumes for a living, and in "Historic Resumes of Famous Americans" (General Publishing Group, $14.95), he provides unneeded resumes for some of America’s best known, if not best loved, historical figures. Among the film-related individuals included in the volume are Louis Armstrong, Josephine Baker, Charlie Chaplin (who was, of course, not an American), George M. Cohan, Frances Farmer, Harry Houdini, Tom Mix, Dorothy Parker, Paul Robeson, and Will Rogers. It is certainly an original idea, and, I suppose, if one cannot come across any other book to give as a gift, this one will suffice. You most certainly would not want to own it.
"Catalogue of Forbidden German Feature and Short Film Productions," original text by John F. Kelton, edited by K.R.M. Short (Greenwood Press, $75.00) reprints the catalog of 395 feature films and short subjects, exhibition of which was forbidden by the occupying forces in Germany after the Second World War. For each film, John F. Kelton provides basic credits and an evaluation of content. The films arre divided into various categories, such as "Racial Propaganda," "Anti-British Propaganda," and "National Socialist Propaganda," and an alphabetical index (which, unfortunately, is not placed at the end of the volume) provides access to specific titles. For example, Jud Suss appears under "Racial Propaganda," and Kelton notes it "was the main indictment against Veit Harlan in his trial here in Hamburg in 1950," adding, "Good production and acting." A long, introductory essay and various appendices, including a listing of "Forbidden German Films" held by the Imperial War Museum, complete the volume. My only complaint about this book is its price, which, considering there are little more than 200 pages and most of the text is typewritten, is outrageous. I notice it is published in the U.K. by Flick Books, and I suspect available over there for a more reasonable price.
It is now more than 40 years since Edward Dmytryk named names to the House Un-American Activities Committee, and yet the animosity towards him from many in Hollywood remains strong. One actor recently told me that if he ever met Dmytryk in the street, he would punch him in the face. There are those unwilling to forgive, and it is very obvious that the subject of their hatred feels he has done nothing for which he needs to atone.
In "Odd Man Out: A Memoir of the Hollywood Ten" (Southern Illinois University Press, P.O. Box 3697, Carbondale, IL 62901. $34.95/$14.95) Edward Dmytrk tells his side of the story in a remarkably unemotional manner, quoting heavily from Committee transcripts. He writes in intimate fashion of what it was like to be in prison, and is, I believe, the first and only member of the Hollywood Ten to discuss what it was like to serve time - Dmytryk was incarcerated with Albert Maltz, and a fellow prisoner during part of their time at Mill Point, West Virginia, was novelist Howard Fast. Dmytryk does not defend his decision to name Communists in Hollywood - as far as he, and presumably many others were and are concerned, there is nothing to defend - and he takes time out to criticize Larry Parks for his emotional plea, "Don’t present me with the choice of either being in contempt of the Committee and going to jail or forcing me to crawl through the mud to be an informer." What Parks was expressing were the thoughts of confused liberals who believed "naming names is a greater crime than subversion." Edward Dmytryk again names the names of six directors who were Communists, and adds, for good measure, that if he had been required to name a seventh, he would have added Joseph Losey to the list.
After his post-prison appearance before the House Un-American Activitites Committee, Dmytryk slowly returned to work, denounced by his one-time fellow travelers and quite a few conservatives. It is interesting that his first major film in 1951 should have been The Sniper, featuring Adolph Menjou, who only months earlier had been a Communist witch-hunter. Dmytryk notes that when disturbed friends asked the actor how he could work with "the ex-commie," Menjou responded, "I’m a whore!" Dmytryk continues, "I have always preferred wit to vilification, regardless of the politics." Or perhaps working with hustlers and whores is preferable in Hollywood to working with those who are not ashamed to follow a cause, left or right.
"Odd Man Out" makes fascinating reading, although marred by a number of typos and some bad misspellings. Opposite the title page is a photograph of Edward Dmytryk with the arrogant look of a man who believes he is and was right. The pages of this book transform that expression into words.
David Bianculli’s "Dictionary of Teleliteracy: Television’s 500 Biggest Hits, Misses, and Events" (Continuum, $29.95) hovers awkwardly between being a reference work and a volume of television criticism, and, ultimately, is neither. Much of the factual information contained in the entries can readily be found in other sources, although it is unusual to find a book on television that includes entries for The Ernie Kovacs Show, the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, the O.J. Simpsom Trial, and Muscular Dystrophy Association Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethons. The author’s discussion of each program or event is lightweight. He does note important moments in the life of a particular show or the influence of the televising of a specific event, but he writes for the New York Daily News, and, as one might expect, he is not a major critic. Just as American television fails to deliver what it promises, so does Bianculli fail, as his publisher promises, to explore how television determines a particular cultural literacy that binds us as a society.
by James Curtis
"W. S. Dyke’s Journal: ‘White Shadows in the South Sea’ (1927-1928) and Other Van Dyke on Van Dyke," edited and annotated by Rudy Behlmer (Scarecrow Press, $34.50): Woodbridge Strong Van Dyke II, MGM’s fast-shooting "One Take Woody," has been one of those legendary figures seemingly lost to the distant past. He died in 1943, and in spite of two books (his own unreliable "Horning Into Africa" and the impossibly artificial "Van Dyke’s Hollywood"), we’ve had little more than anecdotal evidence of what he was like. Now, thanks to the diligence of Rudy Behlmer and an amazing discovery, Van Dyke lives and breathes in this wonderful new book.
The discovery is the journal itself, an unvarnished account of the making of White Shadows in the South Seas that forms the nucleus of the book. Van Dyke wrote it in the form of letters to one Josephine Chippo, his lover at the time, and since it was never intended for publication, it is unguarded, colorful, and vividly intimate.
Behlmer has done an excellent job of editing the journal, giving it a solid foundation of introductory data and framing it with a fascinating assortment of supporting material. Among the highlights: an unpublished autobiographical article from 1936, story conference notes for Tarzan, The Ape Man, a profile of Van Dyle for Photoplay magazine, and a number of rare stills. The cumulative effect is astounding: Van Dyke revealed to us as few men ever are.
Prepared in cooperation with the Van Dyke family, "W. S. Van Dyke’s Journal" is a treasure. It’s the autobiography we never got and the biography we’ll probably never get.
( "W. S. Van Dyke’s Journal" is No. 46 in the Scarecrow Press "Filmmakers" series, edited by Anthony Slide. Other new titles in the series include No. 47, "Music From The House of Hammer" by Randall D. Larson, $32.50; No. 50, "A Great Lady: A Life of the Screenwriter Sonja Levien" by Larry Ceplair, $34.50; and No. 51, "A History of Horrors: The Rise and Fall of the House of Hammer" by Denis Meikle, $55.00)